_________________If you cannot inspire yourself to read a book about women's basketball, or any book about women's sports, you cannot inspire any young girl or boy to write a book about them. http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Richardstrek

A giant, and one of the earliest driving forces of rock and roll. Presley had a hit earlier than Berry was certainly the king of record sales. The roots of rock and roll predate both Berry and Presley.

Unlike Presley, Berry wrote most or all of his hits. He influenced many of the greatest rock artists of the 60's.

Elvis was the King of Rock & Roll. There is no other. Chuck Berry was the father of Rock & Roll. And there was only one father of Rock & Roll. The difference is not just rhetorical fan talk... (Like... is Godzilla king of the monsters or King Kong?) Unless that's the limits of your understanding of these things.

Elvis and Chuck Berry don't displace or compete with each other. One is not the real deal and the other an imposter. Neither was more real than the other. It's nothing at all like that. They did two completely different things. Chuck Berry was a composer and an inventor and an icon of the electric guitar who was the perfect vehicle for the sound that he created. Elvis as a singer and a dancer was an interpretive artist who had NO peer. None. Incredibly, and quite sadly, people are compelled, for some reason, to blow this negative-fairy dust up each other's noses. Both were incredible artists and incredible performers.

Chuck Berry pretty much invented a large portion of the initial first-heard music of rock & roll himself. He perfected his performance and set the table for all the music that came after him. But everything that came after him was different. Elvis was different, The Stones were different, The Doors, etc. People took what they heard and changed it according to their own artistry. All of these great artists were different from one another. But Chuck Berry was the first star to create, perfect, and popularize the uptempo guitar-based music we all think of as rock & roll.

I think I heard today that Chuck was the first person inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. And that is exactly as it should have been. He was the daddy of it all. His music was inside me as a kid and will be inside me till the day I die.

There is surely a point to be made about the recording industry realizing that a black star could not have become the same kind of a teen idol as Elvis did in the mid- '50s because far too much hell would have been brought down on a white girl salivating over an equally handsome Negro.

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What Elvis Presley really was about was the shift of American popular culture into the world of adolescent customers. What we now call disposable income is the money parents give their children to buy recordings, go to movies and purchase clothes. Elvis was in the center of the moment when the recording and film industries realized the bucks to be made if some guy drove adolescent girls crazy.

to my mind, people's perceptions then and our perceptions now might be very different had berry and presley emerged on a level playing field, in a less racially canted era. (not that our current era isn't seriously racially canted!) in the same way that mlk and others were confined (minimized) to labels such as "civil rights leader" instead of "american philosopher." berry was every bit as much an "entertainer" whose talents as an "interpretive artist" were never fairly credited as presley's were - because of the times. his performances, his gyrations, weren't celebrated - they were feared, even considered a threat. i don't expect this debate to ever end, but berry was and is the king, from where i'm sitting.

to my mind, people's perceptions then and our perceptions now might be very different had berry and presley emerged on a level playing field, in a less racially canted era.

They would both be very different artists if the culture that produced them was altered that radically.

Chuck Berry established Rock & Roll as a guitar driven form. 1950's R&R was filled with horn based acts like Bill Haley & the Comets and piano shouters like Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard. It was Berry's distinctive sound that inspired generations of aspiring musicians to take up the axe.

_________________Why can't we sit in the park like other boys and girls?
Why do we have to walk in the subway tunnel?

Every single day I need water. And I need coffee. I need egg whites. And I need soyrizo and soranos. I need veggies. And I need chocolate. I need TV and I need the internet. I need my feet for walking, my hands for functioning, and my fat ass for sitting. I want and need all of those things. The industry didn't decide that they, the industry, needed an Elvis. The public did upon hearing the seminal recordings coming out of Sun records. The sound was different. People heard Chuck Berry and they loved it. They heard Elvis and they loved that too. When teenage females saw Elvis it was lights out for every other entertainer in the world for those females. Was Chuck Berry's appeal limited because of race? Of course it was. Was it limited because he simply wasn't Elvis and Elvis emerged at nearly the same time as he did? Yes. Could he ever in a million years be Elvis? Could Elvis ever in a million years be him? No and no. Sex sells and physical attractiveness and charisma on the level of an Elvis Presley being the vehicle for an amazing voice and musical talent is something that would have, in any era or racial climate, spread an entertainers fame like wildfire. Nothing will ever diminish Chuck Berry's guitar, his music, or his performances. Elvis did not have that. Elvis had a guitar player. Scotty Moore. Another seminal icon. Scotty Moore's influence on someone like George Harrison was similar to Chuck Berry's influence on Keith Richards. Was Scotty Moore's influence on the guitar as great as Chuck Berry's? Not even in the same universe. Despite race. Recognizing the racial implications of America at every stage of our history is imperative and a never ending burden. But the racial subtext that has always come up around these discussions about Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley that diminish in any way who or what Elvis was is a tiresome endeavor. It's also barking up the wrong tree. If you can't bow to Elvis Presley... you completely invalidate your own opinions on the music being discussed. By diminishing that one, you diminish all of it, and nothing more than the level of importance which should be attached to your own voice on this matter. Elvis shouldn't even be in this thread. But he is because someone said, and certainly it is an opinion that has been stated a hundred thousand times over in the last 24 hours, that Chuck Berry is the real king of rock & roll. Well, except that someone else already has that title attached to their name and their legacy. And so we get it. The racial subtext, and the jab, ad nauseum. But you're setting black pepper against salt. Rubber against metal. If you could just pull back from the racial politics and truly appreciate the one you're trying to diminish, or don't quite *get* you could celebrate and appreciate the actual and true and distinct greatness and gifts both these two blessed creatures bestowed upon all of us.

Every single day I need water. And I need coffee. I need egg whites. And I need soyrizo and soranos. I need veggies. And I need chocolate. I need TV and I need the internet. I need my feet for walking, my hands for functioning, and my fat ass for sitting. I want and need all of those things. The industry didn't decide that they, the industry, needed an Elvis. The public did upon hearing the seminal recordings coming out of Sun records. The sound was different. People heard Chuck Berry and they loved it. They heard Elvis and they loved that too. When teenage females saw Elvis it was lights out for every other entertainer in the world for those females. Was Chuck Berry's appeal limited because of race? Of course it was. Was it limited because he simply wasn't Elvis and Elvis emerged at nearly the same time as he did? Yes. Could he ever in a million years be Elvis? Could Elvis ever in a million years be him? No and no. Sex sells and physical attractiveness and charisma on the level of an Elvis Presley being the vehicle for an amazing voice and musical talent is something that would have, in any era or racial climate, spread an entertainers fame like wildfire. Nothing will ever diminish Chuck Berry's guitar, his music, or his performances. Elvis did not have that. Elvis had a guitar player. Scotty Moore. Another seminal icon. Scotty Moore's influence on someone like George Harrison was similar to Chuck Berry's influence on Keith Richards. Was Scotty Moore's influence on the guitar as great as Chuck Berry's? Not even in the same universe. Despite race. Recognizing the racial implications of America at every stage of our history is imperative and a never ending burden. But the racial subtext that has always come up around these discussions about Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley that diminish in any way who or what Elvis was is a tiresome endeavor. It's also barking up the wrong tree. If you can't bow to Elvis Presley... you completely invalidate your own opinions on the music being discussed. By diminishing that one, you diminish all of it, and nothing more than the level of importance which should be attached to your own voice on this matter. Elvis shouldn't even be in this thread. But he is because someone said, and certainly it is an opinion that has been stated a hundred thousand times over in the last 24 hours, that Chuck Berry is the real king of rock & roll. Well, except that someone else already has that title attached to their name and their legacy. And so we get it. The racial subtext, and the jab, ad nauseum. But you're setting black pepper against salt. Rubber against metal. If you could just pull back from the racial politics and truly appreciate the one you're trying to diminish, or don't quite *get* you could celebrate and appreciate the actual and true and distinct greatness and gifts both these two blessed creatures bestowed upon all of us.

well, if i had my druthers, we'd stop assigning royalty and other titles of distinction to these people because it's too subjective. i wasn't a big fan of elvis - as crouch said, his entertainment style was "corny" - nor was i big fan of berry. so on some level, i really have no agenda to diminish or elevate either artist. you can blame my hyper-awareness of the racism that has impacted my life and perceptions. and yeah, ad nauseam and all, but it can never be overstated. since labels persist, i'll stand with the (real) king, and repeat it when necessary to make a point. ultimately, what i'm saying (my point) has nothing to do with either of the two individuals.

My sense is that Elvis was just called the generic musical "King" of his era far more often than the more specific "King of Rock and Roll" -- much as Sinatra was called the generic "Chairman of the Board". Presley sang ballads, blues, country, gospel, pop, (<- Oxford comma) and rock, royally dominating record sales in many of these genres.

James Brown was the "Godfather of Soul".

I really don't recall Chuck Berry ever having a nickname in his heyday.

Here is a 1938 song that Chuck Berry covered (available on Youtube), and I can visualize Jerry Lee Lewis banging it out. Some say it is of the boogie woogie genre; others say it is early rock & roll.

"Chuck was and is forever more one of rock 'n' roll's greatest legends all over the world," McCartney wrote in his tribute. "I was privileged to meet him in his home town St Louis when I played there on tour, and it's a memory I will cherish forever. It's not really possible to sum up what he meant to all us young guys growing up in Liverpool but I can give it a try."

It's hard to imagine the Beatles without Chuck Berry paving the way for them, but then again it's impossible to imagine last half-century of music as a whole without the inventor of rock.